In the return direction on a satellite network, multiple very small aperture terminals (VSATs) may share one inroute gateway station with a certain amount of bandwidth when transmitting data. Because the VSAT traffic has different priorities, and VSATs may have different service plans, the different types of traffic data may be regulated in different ways to meet the quality of service (QoS) requirements. In addition, due to limited bandwidth, an inroute to the gateway station may be congested for certain periods of time. Without appropriate traffic regulation, low priority traffic may block high priority traffic, causing unsatisfied QoS.
Several things may be considered when allocating bandwidth to inroute traffic. The bandwidth may be allocated based on the actual demand for the purposes of efficient spectrum utilization. A VSAT may report its backlog to obtain bandwidth on a return channel for transmitting data. Some traffic classes, for example, interactive traffic, may need to have higher priority than other traffic, such as streaming and bulk traffic, when granting bandwidth, but should not be able to completely block lower priority traffic. Different VSATs may have different service plans. When the network is congested, a VSAT may experience degraded QoS, e.g., reduced service rate or longer latency. Fairness criteria may require that the reduced service rate be proportional to the VSAT's service plan. A VSAT may be allowed to occupy the whole channel at a scheduled time in order to transmit large sized bursts. A large burst may have a relatively lower percentage of overhead information.